Avenging Spider Man #15.1 Review

For those of you who don't know; this leads on directly from the events in ASM #700. So in other words, if you have not read that then do not read this if you do not want ASM to be spoiled for you. Right now that the housekeeping is done, lets dive into this issue!

As some of you may have noticed, I do not pick this book up normally. The only reason I did was because it has the all new Superior Spider Man; I really did not dare miss it. So what we get in this book is a very dialogue heavy issue which focuses on the first few days after Peter Parker died and Doc Ock took over his body.
I think this was a very well written story which progressed perfectly. Doc Ock was first just very happy to have beaten his age old nemesis, then he realized just how much time and ability Peter Parker had wasted in his life. He saw that there was some great potential for him to achieve great things; things which Peter could only dream if doing. The issue concluded with Doc Ock realizing that even though he always thought himself superior to Peter, he always ending up getting beaten by Spider Man. This made he reassess his own achievements in life. He then went on to promise to beat everything that Doc Ock had achieved too.
As mentioned earlier I think it was really well written. The first few pages made me think that Doc was going to be a complete asshole, but the book ended on a positive note for me. In fact, it ended in a quite similar way to ASM; which is not a bad thing.

There is not much to say about this issue, but I still think it a must read just to see what was going through Doc's mind after he became Superior Spider Man. Getting to grips with Peter's life is sure to be a challenge; as well as doing things for the greater good. In this issue he actually stopped a robber who he was planning on letting go. He seemed to act on impulse; and I am very interested to see if this theme continues in Superior. I wonder if somewhere deep down Peter is still actually there? Hmmm.

I highly recommend this book, and I am sure most Spidey fans will be picking it up this week. Considering Dan Slott did not touch this issue, I am very impressed with the results. I also think that this issue acts as a nice little prologue for Superior Spider Man; in fact it could have even been an #0 issue. I am now beyond excited for Superior #1 to hit next month now; which means that this issue has done its job successfully.

Rating: 9 / 10